The present embodiments relate to portable electronic devices and are more particularly directed to making electrical signals and other energy from circuits in such devices more tamper resistant to access.
Portable electronic devices have impacted if not revolutionized many aspects of contemporary lifestyle. One significant example of such a portable device is the cellular telephone. With its advent, improvement, and ubiquitous dissemination, the cellular telephone has changed how people and entities communicate in all manners of business and life. Numerous other portable electronic devices are also widely used and provide various benefits. Such devices include, but are not limited to: the personal digital assistant (“PDA”) and related data organizers, any of which is sometimes referred to as a pocket computer or palmtop computer; portable alarm clocks and timers; portable music players capable of playing various audio and video formats, with such formats typically being one or more of various signal compression types (e.g., MP3, MPEG-4 AAC, AC-3, WMA, RealAudio, and still others); pagers; portable video game players; wireless email devices and other portable electronic devices. Further, some additional devices include the functionality of two or more of any of the preceding devices.
With increased use and prevalence also comes the unfortunate possibility that such portable electronic devices will be used for undesirable, unauthorized and nefarious purposes. Indeed, with the development of terrorism, so-called improvised explosive devices (“IED”; plural “IEDs”) have been reportedly triggered by a portable electronic device. By placing a call to the cellular telephone, the terrorist might intend to exploit a change in signal activity therein due to the call event. As another example, a programmable function, such as a timed event for an alarm clock might be a subject of such exploitation. It would be desirable to provide improvements that would promote tamper-resistance to attempts to misuse portable electronic devices.